I am so glad to hear Henry is doing well. Also glad to hear about the dietary changes that you have made. We have been fortunate not to have a recurrence of a stone (knock on Coroplast!) but I think lessening the limestone is a good idea and I have also switched Evey to KM pellets, which she loves.

It is so helpful to hear about how a long-lived piggy is getting along and the various things that seem to aid in their longevity.

Evey went on some TMS this morning and I am hoping her news is as good as Henry's. Evey sends him a special piggy scruffle.

I have no idea if the additional dietary changes are going to make one bit of difference. The main thing I am seeing, though, is that Henry is happy and bright-eyed. We are now just about two months past his surgery.

Sef, to answer your question, my vet didn't include the concentration on the current bottle of Actigall, so I will have to ask next week when the office is open again.

Hi guys! Glad to hear Henry is doing so well! Count me in, too, for wanting to know more about your Actigall dose. Chester had been on Urisodol, and it may have helped prevent more stones from forming, but it definitely did nothing for the ones he already had. I'd love to know to help pigs in the future.

Henry started out on 150 mg/mL for eight days. After that, he has been on a maintenance dose of 75 mg/ML once a day.

While on the maintenance dose and before his surgery, he kicked out a small stone and several stone flakes.

When his big giant stone was removed, the vet said that it was really slimy, and she attributed that to the Actigall. She said there was no sludge in his urine, just that stone.

So far, on the maintenance dose, he does regularly kick out sludge. He has also kicked out one small stone.

Today he looks like he's hurting, and I suspect that he is working on kicking out another stone. He continues to urinate just fine, so I am just going to watch and wait tonight and see what happens. In the meanwhile, he's eating and drinking and chasing Frost around.

Our local vet, Dr. Miller, spent a lot of time making phone calls and on the web to get her information. I know that she talked to Dr. Ridgeway in Long Beach.

When Jim e-mailed our former vet at K-State (she's now at one of the universities in Oklahoma, heading their new exotics program, lucky Oklahomans), she seemed to be familiar with the Actigall, because she said that she didn't think it would work on a stone as big as the one Henry had. To me that says she wasn't unfamiliar with the treatment.

rshevin, I think it's still a mystery. Even Dr. Miller said that the vets she talked to said, "We're not sure why it works, but for some pigs, it seems to."